IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v11y2024i1d10.1057_s41599-024-03727-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Opportunity or opportunism? Blockchain technology adoption and corporate default risk

Author

Listed:
  • Yonggen Luo

    (Guangzhou University)

  • Miaomiao Fang

    (Guangdong University of Finance and Economics)

  • Antai Li

    (Huazhong University of Science and Technology)

  • Shiqiang Chen

    (University of Macau)

Abstract

Blockchain technology plays a significant role in new technology infrastructure and has a significant influence on artificial intelligence, big data, and 5 G, and its application has been extended to the Internet of Things, digital asset transactions, digital finance, and so on. In financial systems, it could improve the efficiency of data processing, reduce errors, and detect fraud. However, blockchain adoption could increase the stock price and induce manipulation opportunisms. Managers could also use this advantage to mask their performance and increase corporate default risk. Using the data of Chinese listed companies from 2001 to 2021, we investigate whether blockchain technology adoption could increase or decrease corporate default risk. Using the expected default risk model to estimate the risk, the results show that the default risk increases once the firm adopts blockchain technology, which indicates managerial opportunism behavior. The effect works in firms with CEO duality and higher power consolidation. And similar results are also shown in the dual-duty companies. The results are also robust in instrumental variable tests, difference-in-difference tests (DIDs), firm-fixed effect, placebo tests, and other robustness tests.

Suggested Citation

  • Yonggen Luo & Miaomiao Fang & Antai Li & Shiqiang Chen, 2024. "Opportunity or opportunism? Blockchain technology adoption and corporate default risk," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03727-6
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-03727-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-024-03727-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-024-03727-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benedetti, Hugo & Kostovetsky, Leonard, 2021. "Digital Tulips? Returns to investors in initial coin offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Cathcart, Lara & Dufour, Alfonso & Rossi, Ludovico & Varotto, Simone, 2020. "The differential impact of leverage on the default risk of small and large firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Smith, Janet Kiholm, 1987. "Trade Credit and Informational Asymmetry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(4), pages 863-872, September.
    4. Autore, Donald & Chen, Huimin (Amy) & Clarke, Nicholas & Lin, Jingrong, 2024. "Blockchain and earnings management: Evidence from the supply chain," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4).
    5. Fisch, Christian & Masiak, Christian & Vismara, Silvio & Block, Joern, 2021. "Motives and profiles of ICO investors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 564-576.
    6. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    7. Chen, Yongmin, 2020. "Improving market performance in the digital economy," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Xavier Castañer & Nikolaos Kavadis, 2013. "Does good governance prevent bad strategy? A study of corporate governance, financial diversification, and value creation by French corporations, 2000–2006," Post-Print hal-04694708, HAL.
    9. Muhammad Atif & Searat Ali, 2021. "Environmental, social and governance disclosure and default risk," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 3937-3959, December.
    10. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    11. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    12. Cioroianu, Iulia & Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles, 2021. "The differential impact of corporate blockchain-development as conditioned by sentiment and financial desperation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    13. Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2021. "Tokenomics: Dynamic Adoption and Valuation [The demand of liquid assets with uncertain lumpy expenditures]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1105-1155.
    14. Mark A Chen & Qinxi Wu & Baozhong Yang, 2019. "How Valuable Is FinTech Innovation?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 2062-2106.
    15. Christopher S. Tuggle & David G. Sirmon & Christopher R. Reutzel & Leonard Bierman, 2010. "Commanding board of director attention: investigating how organizational performance and CEO duality affect board members' attention to monitoring," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(9), pages 946-968, September.
    16. Malik, Ashish & Froese, Fabian Jintae, 2022. "Corruption as a perverse Innovation: The dark side of digitalization and corruption in international business," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 682-693.
    17. Duru, Augustine & Iyengar, Raghavan J. & Zampelli, Ernest M., 2016. "The dynamic relationship between CEO duality and firm performance: The moderating role of board independence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4269-4277.
    18. Zhong Xu & Chuanwei Zou, 2021. "What can blockchain do and cannot do?," China Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 4-25, January.
    19. Jiri Chod & Nikolaos Trichakis & Gerry Tsoukalas & Henry Aspegren & Mark Weber, 2020. "On the Financing Benefits of Supply Chain Transparency and Blockchain Adoption," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4378-4396, October.
    20. David Yermack, 2017. "Corporate Governance and Blockchains," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 7-31.
    21. Jiri Chod & Evgeny Lyandres, 2021. "A Theory of ICOs: Diversification, Agency, and Information Asymmetry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 5969-5989, October.
    22. Hui Zhang & Khine Kyaw, 2017. "Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Companies," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 4(2), pages 57-64, March.
    23. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    24. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2023. "Decentralization through Tokenization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 247-299, February.
    25. Ryan Davidson & Jenny Goodwin‐Stewart & Pamela Kent, 2005. "Internal governance structures and earnings management," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 45(2), pages 241-267, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruifeng Xu & E Guan, 2023. "Can blockchain innovation promote total factor productivity? Evidence from Chinese-listed firms," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(6), pages 653-670, February.
    2. Cahill, Daniel & G. Baur, Dirk & (Frank) Liu, Zhangxin & W. Yang, Joey, 2020. "I am a blockchain too: How does the market respond to companies’ interest in blockchain?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Jiri Chod & Nikolaos Trichakis & S. Alex Yang, 2022. "Platform Tokenization: Financing, Governance, and Moral Hazard," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6411-6433, September.
    4. Bhambhwani, Siddharth M. & Huang, Allen H., 2024. "Auditing decentralized finance," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2).
    5. Dulani Jayasuriya Daluwathumullagamage & Alexandra Sims, 2021. "Fantastic Beasts: Blockchain Based Banking," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-43, April.
    6. Meles, Antonio & Salerno, Dario & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Verdoliva, Vincenzo & Zhang, Jianing, 2023. "The influence of green innovation on default risk: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 692-710.
    7. Yannis Bakos & Hanna Halaburda, 2022. "Overcoming the Coordination Problem in New Marketplaces via Cryptographic Tokens," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1368-1385, December.
    8. Ahsan Habib & Mabel D' Costa & Hedy Jiaying Huang & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan & Li Sun, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of financial distress: review of the empirical literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1023-1075, April.
    9. Jongsub Lee & Tao Li & Donghwa Shin, 2022. "The Wisdom of Crowds in FinTech: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(1), pages 1-46.
    10. Wu, Dexiang & Cheng, Huihui & Luo, Cuicui & Han, Liyan, 2022. "Does government initiated corporate social responsibility lower the default risk? Evidence from the targeted poverty alleviation campaign in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Nie, Zi & Ling, Xuan & Chen, Meian, 2023. "The power of technology: FinTech and corporate debt default risk in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Wang, Jinbo & Ran, Maosheng & Huang, Qing & Li, Wanli, 2022. "Nationalization of private enterprises and default risk: Evidence from mixed-ownership reform in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 534-553.
    13. de Andrés, Pablo & Arroyo, David & Correia, Ricardo & Rezola, Alvaro, 2022. "Challenges of the market for initial coin offerings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Kou, Mingting & Yang, Yuanqi & Chen, Kaihua, 2024. "Financial technology research: Past and future trajectories," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 162-181.
    15. Dulani Jayasuriya Daluwathumullagamage & Alexandra Sims, 2020. "Blockchain-Enabled Corporate Governance and Regulation," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-41, June.
    16. Yi Cao & Xiaoquan Liu & Jia Zhai & Shan Hua, 2022. "A two‐stage Bayesian network model for corporate bankruptcy prediction," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 455-472, January.
    17. Alves, Carlos Francisco & Meneses, Lilian Lima, 2024. "ESG scores and debt costs: Exploring indebtedness, agency costs, and financial system impact," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    18. Gerry Tsoukalas & Brett Hemenway Falk, 2020. "Token-Weighted Crowdsourcing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3843-3859, September.
    19. Klaus Grobys & Timothy King & Niranjan Sapkota, 2022. "A Fractal View on Losses Attributable to Scams in the Market for Initial Coin Offerings," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-18, December.
    20. John M. Griffin & Amin Shams, 2020. "Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1913-1964, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03727-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.